H.r.770 - American Innovation $1 Coin Act

Word Geek Note:

seigniorage or seignorage

n.
1. something claimed by a sovereign or superior as a prerogative, right, or due

2. a fee payable to a government for coining bullion

3. the difference in value between the cost of bullion and the face value of the coin made from it

[1400-50; late Middle English seigneurage < Middle French seignorage, seigneurage; see seigneur, -age]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/seigniorage

Plenty of wiggle room there...

Also, in this bill "In God We Trust" will be required to be on the obverse instead of the rim. If that motto *has* to be on a coin, the rim is the perfect place for it. If anything should be relocated from the rim to the obverse or reverse, it should be something with utility like the date and mint mark.

As long as we have dollar bills dollar coinage will not work. One or the other, not both!

Actually, due to the "pioneer or innovator" clause, I suspect that we will probably see mostly people on these coins.
I'd guess that for 80% or more of the states (never mind the territories) there's really no specific innovation associated specifically with that state (that isn't really obscure, anyway - there are probably patents for every state), which means in most cases we're going to see either 1) a portrait of a scientist who was born there and/or studied there, or 2) a portrait of a guy (or a group portrait of a bunch of guys) who explored the area.
Due to the "no living people" clause, probably mostly the latter, i.e. assorted pre-1900 explorers (since scientists who were mostly active in the 1960s or later tend to be still alive today, and before the 1960s many of the less important states just didn't really have anyone).


...Actually, for the innovations part - I'll go ask around on Sufficient Velocity. It sounds like a nice question: which examples can people actually think of?
(AH.com would've been even better, but I haven't been there much since June or something. Maybe later.)

Also, just realized that the innovations/innovators can include the local natives too, which does get rid of the "no living people" problem somewhat (mind you, 19th century native objects are probably even less representative of actual " American Innovation" than 18th century explorers, but the actual stuff tended to happen mostly in the biggest/most important cities, and/or involve people who are still alive today).

Again, it says "No head and shoulders portrait or bust of any person, living or dead, and no portrait of a living person may be included in the design of any coin issued under this subsection."

I do not see much wiggle room, except maybe something like Lincoln on the 2009 cent reverses, where the person is a part of a larger scene. I think this is meant for the designers to focus more on the actual innovations and less on a particular innovator.

Bingo, you found the wiggle. A head only or head and neck portrait satisfies the "No head and shoulders" requirement.

Well, let's see its only been Eisenhowers, SBAs, Sacs, and Presidential rejections so far... Four strikes you're out? Naw...let's try again!

This is just more proof the real issue is not about government working FOR the people and its not about what the majority of Americans desire.

The issue is certainly not about saving the PEOPLE money (maybe good looking numbers on paper though for political reasons though). And the idea certainly flies in the face of common that should be dictated by the millions of metal disks sitting unused since clear back to the 70s, SBAs once being (still?) relegated to the job of Baltimore subway tokens, and the taxpayer money being wasted to guard/store the most recent billions if metal disks people never asked for/used and rejected as a whole.

Is keeping their paid artists busy the reason why the mint has to keep inventing ways to make new designs every time someone sneezes? If so I see this whole issue as nothing more than yet another waste of even more taxpayer money they claim they want to save.

I personally am ready to see special designs become truly special again. How? By going back to making regular series (with artistic talent the caliber of classic coin artists), and just every once in awhile doing something special.


And let's use alternatives that save money and let the American people quit having to tell the government we don't want these coins (except some in our in our collections).

Don't forget the Morgan and Peace too! (The government had hundreds of millions of those in storage too at one time. If it hadn't been for silver going way up they'd probably still be there too.)

I suspect the only US dollar coins that ever really circulated were the Seated dollars between 1840 and 1850. Before 1840 there weren't any, and after 1850 they were worth more than their face value. During the 1840's they would have been preferred over paper money because the paper money wasn't trustworthy and the dollar coins were.